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WHO WE ARE

The California Mathematics Project at Sacramento State (CMPSS) is a professional network of educators dedicated to engaging students in productive struggle, sense-making, collaborative reasoning, and clear communication of thinking and solutions.  We support teachers to build procedural fluency on a base of conceptual understanding, and to strategically select tasks and contexts for application that connect ideas and provide access for all students.  We inspire teachers to reflect after each lesson: “Who did the math thinking today?”

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Deb Stetson

Project Director

Deb Stetson is the Project Director of the Sacramento State Mathematics Project.  For the Quantitative Reasoning Courses, she has been a member of the writing team and helps coordinate and lead professional learning.  In her work at CSUS she partners with professors to develop and lead professional learning activities for teachers.  Deb taught high school for 13 years at Roseville High School and left the classroom to do this work with teachers in 1999. She has taught future mathematics teachers at CSUS. Her favorite aspect of this work is being in teachers’ classrooms working with their students--partnering with them to create opportunities for students to have those “aha” moments.  A favorite question to ponder after teaching is "Who did the mathematics thinking today?" When she isn’t teaching math, Deb enjoys being outside gardening in the yard with Amelia, Pepper and Scratch, her chickens.

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Sayonita Ghosh Hajra

Principal Investigator
Assistant Professor of Mathematics

Dr. Ghosh Hajra teaches mathematics content courses for prospective elementary teachers at Sac State. She is passionate about math enrichment and creating opportunities for learners to explore the beauty of mathematics in ways that make sense to them.

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Scott Farrand

Faculty Advisor
Professor of Mathematics

Dr. Farrand founded the Math Project at Sacramento State in 1999.  His approach to teaching mathematics is to turn a lesson into something puzzling, which intrigues the learners.  He then guides them to find connections between ideas and to reason for themselves.

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Debbie Dennick

Program & Event Manager

Debbie Dennick is a Sac State alumni that never made her way off campus. She started managing events for the Center for Mathematics and Science Education in 2008, "just until I graduate" and hasn't looked back since.

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Heidi Trapp

Administrative Support Coordinator, Sacramento State

Heidi Trapp began working for the center for Mathematics and science Education in 2016, after she moved to Sacramento from the Midwest (Boiler up!). She handles finances, hiring, Deb's run-on sentences, and everyone's food leftovers.

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